The present invention relates to an electronic percussion musical instrument which has striking pads (i.e. music playing pads) and generates percussion musical tones when the pads are struck by the player, and more particularly to such an instrument in which the pads are configured to work either as individual pads or as grouped pad zones by combining some of the pads to which pads or pad zones the respective musical tones (i.e. timbres) to be produced are allocated, and in which some of the pads or grouped pad zones are used for instructing special playing technique effects to be imparted to the generated musical tones.
Known in the art are such electronic percussion musical instruments which have music playing manipulation elements in the form of a pad (i.e. playing pads) to be struck by the player and generate electronic musical tones resembling drum sounds and cymbal sounds when the pads are struck, such as disclosed in registered Japanese patent publications No. 3,835,163 and No. 3,554,770. Such electronic percussion instruments having pad-type music playing manipulation elements are capable of generating individual musical tones or a short phrase of musical tones when the pads are struck by the sticks or hands or other body parts.
Such known electronic percussion instruments are provided with a plurality of playing pads, which are usually arranged in close positions to each other. Such an arrangement, however, has a drawback that the player may erroneously strike a wrong pad other than the intended pad in playing the instrument. Especially in the case of a desktop-type electronic percussion instrument in a small size having a plurality of playing pads wherein each of the pads has accordingly a small striking area, there will be a high possibility of striking a wrong pad adjacent to the intended pad.
Further in a conventional electronic percussion instrument having a plurality of playing pads, the musical tones to be generated in response to the strikes on the pads are set individually pad by pad. The operation of setting the musical tones to the individual pads, however, will be troublesome and time-consuming where there are so many pads, and the work for setting various items during the music playing manipulation will accordingly very troublesome, which will therefore deteriorate the easiness and the convenience of a desktop-type electronic percussion instrument which is designed for the player to enjoy simple plays on the percussion instrument.
Further, the conventional models of electronic percussion instruments are mostly of the type which has striking pads in the form of a planer face, and accordingly the striking operations against the pads are limited to a basic manner of striking the pad face with the tip ends of the beating sticks. On such conventional electronic percussion instruments, the player can not manipulate the instrument in manners such as to mimic the drum rim beating by the middle body of the sticks other than the basic manner. Thus, the conventional models do not meet the need for a wide range of manipulating operations.
Further, the conventional electronic percussion instruments as disclosed in the above-mentioned registered Japanese patent publications have a plurality of pads which are individually arranged independent from each other, and accordingly require a basic playing manner of handling each of the pads as a separate manipulation zone. Thus, the conventional models are not intended for a wide variety of playing manners by effectively utilizing the plurality of pads, such as by combining plural pads into an enlarged manipulation area to mimic performances on a variety of percussion instruments.